Farewell My Love
by Birdiebabe
Summary: A tragic accident leads to painful decisions and changes for Cory Mathews. Finished!
1. Chapter One

Chapter One:

Author's Note: You may remember me from my last story, "A Tragic Reunion" which I never finished. But don't worry. I'll finish this one. How do I know? I know this because I'll have the whole story written before I post a single chapter. This means you will get a new chapter every day or so until you've read the whole story. This doesn't, however, mean you shouldn't review because I am requiring a minimum number of reviews before I post the next chapter! (Basically this is so if the story sucks I don't have to waste any ones time with new chapters.)

_Disclaimer: I don't own BWM…it'd be really cool if I did though!_

            Cory Mathews woke up to the sound of his alarm clock at 5 AM, as he did every morning. And, as he did every morning, he promptly fell back asleep until the smells of his beautiful wife Topanga cooking breakfast carried him down the stairs to the quaint kitchen of their 1920's era home.

            "Good morning, darling!" she greeted him.

            "Good morning honey" he said, as he patted her pregnant belly. "You know, you really should stop working soon. The stress of your job is just too much for little Cory Jr."

            She smiled at him, smacked him playfully with her spatula, and said "I'll quit working when Doctor Hamilton tells me too. Until then, I have law cases to attend to."

            They sat down, ate the delicious breakfast she had prepared, and talked about their plans for the day. The beautiful Florida sunshine pored through the window next to the table.

            Finally, Cory glanced at his watch, kissed his wife, and headed out the door. What he didn't know was that later that day, his life would be forever changed.

Sorry it is so short…it's really more of an introduction than a first chapter…the next one will be longer I promise.


	2. Chapter Two

Chapter Two:

The hours dragged by for Cory, who found himself glancing at his watch every few minutes. Around noon, he made a call to the jewelry store to tell them he would be coming later to pick up the diamond bracelet he had bought Topanga for a "You're a Mommy!" present. He was planning to give it to her tommorow when they went for their latest utlrasound. They both hoped it would be the day they would find out the sex of the baby so that they could start decorating the nursery, planning a baby shower, and buying clothes. Topanga was hoping for a son, but Cory didn't really care either way. He was just overjoyed at the chance to be a father. Finally Six O'clock rolled around, and he left the busy office and headed to the jewelry store. He paid for the bracelet and drove home.

            The Miami traffic was extremely busy (as usual) and he finally arrived home around 7:30. He was surprised to see that Topanga wasn't home yet. He searched around the house, afraid she might have fallen and hurt herself or something, but she was no where to be found. He decided she must have gotten caught in traffic or was running late at ork. Still, it was unusual for her to not have called him. He decided to take the dog for a walk to pass the time. He knew Topanga wouldn't want him to worry unnecessarily about her. He walked Watson, their obese Basset Hound around the block. He wanted to walk more, but Watson would hear nothing of it. They came back in the house and Cory hung up the leash.

            "Topanga?" he called, but there was no answer. By now, Cory was really starting to get worried. But still, he knew she had been later coming home from work before. He turned on the news and sat down to wait.

            First their was a half an hour of national news, which Cory watched, although he was rather bored. Then, local news came on. Their leading story was about a giant car accident. He wathed the feature, only with the curiosity that any man has, until he saw, right in the middle of the large amount of wreckage, a car that looked almost like Topanga's. He shook his head, reassuring himself that such a thing could never happen to Topanga.

            Suddenly, the ringing telephone interrupted his train of thought.


	3. Chapter Three

Chapter Three:

            "Hello?" Cory said, trying to mask the fear in his voice.

            "Hello? Is this Mr. Mathews?" said a voice which Cory did not recognize.

            "Y..Yes" he stuttered.

            "My name is Frank Sommer. I'm with the Miami Police Department. We think your wife may have been involved in the accident on the highway earlier. Have you heard about it?"

            "Yes…what do you mean "think"?"

            "Well, the car was badly damaged. What little identification we could recover pointed towards your wife. Look sir, I think you should come down to Miami General right now."

            "Is she alive?"

            "Yes, but she's in a deep coma. She actually came through the accident fairly well besides that. Just a broken leg and some cuts, scrapes, and bruises."

            "Is she going to be all right?"

            "I think I'll let the doctors tell you that. Me, I'm just a cop…Well, I'm sorry. Please, hurry to the hospital. I'll be waiting here to get some information."

            Cory hung up the phone without even saying goodbye. He glanced down at his hand and realized that he was trembling. He sat there in shock for a moment, while his brain tried to process what he had just heard. _It must be some mistake! It can't be._ He jotted down a note to Topanga on the counter for when she got home, since this was obviously a huge mistake. It couldn't happen. It couldn't.

            He jumped in the car and fought through traffic to the hospital. He parked the car, turned it off, and started to get out, until he was overtaken by weeping and had to stop. _What if?_ He walked through the parking lot, glancing up at the sky where rain clouds were starting to move in. In the lobby, stood a cop and a doctor, talking. Cory's heart began to pound as he walked towards them.


	4. Chapter Four

            _A/N: Thanks for the reviews everyone (although I'd like to get more…this story isn't getting reviewed as much as my last one…is it that bad?) One note for "_nachonaco" – _my chapters are so short because my goal with this story is to get my message across in as few words as I can. I'm not going to add a whole bunch of extra information to cloud up my story when it isn't necessary. But that's my style, and you're entitled to your opinion. Thanks for giving it._

Chapter Four:

            Cory walked through the automatic doors leading to the lobby, and headed to the receptionist's desk, trying to ignore the cop and doctor he could see from the corner of his eye. He turned his back on them and kept walking towards the desk.

            Suddenly, Cory jumped at the unexpected touch of a hand on his shoulder.

            "Mr. Mathews?" said the voice.

            Cory turned around and saw a doctor in a long white lab coat with a name tag reading Dr. Lucas.

            "Yes, that's me…"

            "Come with me, please."

            Cory followed with the blind trust of a child. Surely they were leading him to someone else's wife, someone else's mother, someone else's daughter. Not Topanga. It couldn't be. Suddenly, they went around a corner where there was a smaller lobby area.

            "ICU waiting room," the doctor explained.

            They kept walking, through another set of doors and down a long corridor. Cory winced at the smell of hospital, of sickness, of death. Finally they reached a door. Room 506. _Oh God no. It can't be. NO NO NO NO. _The doctor reached out his hand to the doorknob and pulled open the thick wooden door. Immediately, Cory knew the frail battered figure in the bed was Topanga. He ran to the bedside, grabbed the motionless hand, and wept.

            "Mr. Mathews," the doctor began in a voice which could only bring bad news, "we did some tests on her brain activity before you arrived. Cory, there were no brain signals. You're wife is brain dead."

            Cory began to shake and weep even more violently. "No, it can't be," he said through his tears. "She's just in a coma. She'll wake up, maybe any minute now. See? Look. She's breathing!"

            "No, I'm sorry, its only our machines breathing for her. Cory, you're wife is dead."

            Cory grabbed his wife's hand again, and sat there, weeping, as the doctor looked on with pity in his eyes.


	5. Chapter Five

Chapter Five:

            After about ten minutes, the doctor helped Cory to his feet and carried him to another room where a nurse gave him a shot. ("It'll calm you down, honey.") She helped him fill out forms and he gave her numbers of people to call.  Cory felt numb, like someone bathing in ice water must feel. The kind nurse led him to a conference room, where the same cop and Doctor Lucas sat. She helped him into the chair and shook her head at the doctor. Cory didn't care. He didn't care about anything anymore.

            "It was a drunk driver," the cops voice began in a tone obviously meant to be soothing. "He was driving on the wrong side of the road, at around 100 Miles per hour. He hit your wife head on. It wasn't her fault Cory. There was nothing she could do."

            Cory sneered angrily at the cop and his foolish notion that Cory could ever blame Topanga.

            "I have to go back to the station, Doc," the cop said to the doctor.

            He left, and Cory and the doctor just stared at each other.

            "The nurse talked to your mother, Cory. She said that she's on the next flight out of Philadelphia. She'll probably be here in a few hours. We also called a Mr. Shawn Hunter who lives in Miami, I assume. He said he's on his way. He'll be here in a couple of minutes. In the meantime, Cory, we must discuss something rather painful. You're wife is dead. But her body is in decent shape. We don't want your wife's death to be for nothing Cory. We want to ask you if you would be willing to donate her organs to patients in need of transplants."

            Cory stared at the doctor.

            "It is a simple procedure Cory. You can save lives. Your wife's death could save the life of someone else's wife. Her body wouldn't be harmed in any way. The funeral could even be open casket, if you wish. Please Cory. I'm sure Topanga would want it that way."

            Cory was unable to say a word. He put his head in his hands and wept, overtaken by grief and sorrow. The door opened and a nurse led in Shawn Hunter.

            Shawn had changed little since their days at Penbrook. He had married and had three children, and when Cory and Topanga moved to Miami he moved also. He knew he was nothing without Cory. The two families never went so much as a week without seeing each other.

            Shawn took one look at Cory and began to weep also.

            "She's dead, isn't she?" he asked.

            The doctor nodded his head.    

            "I'm discussing the possibility of organ donation with Cory right now."

            Shawn fell into the chair next to Cory. The two men cried together.

            Suddenly Shawn got up and walked right up to the doctor. He began to yell, and scream, begging to know why they didn't save her, and how dare they ask about cutting her open and taking her organs like some kind of sick twisted Frankenstein. The same nurse came in and took Shawn away.

            She brought him back several minutes later, obviously sedated. Cory and Shawn, best friends their whole lives, sat next to each other and cried silently, careful not to interrupt the silence death had left behind.


	6. Chapter Six

_A/N: Thanks for the reviews and the suggestions everyone. Your ideas are all great, but I had finished writing the story before I posted the first chapter. Also, eM's aLter Ego, I can understand what you're saying about combining chapters to make it easier to read. The problem is that this story is pretty short, and ending the chapters where I do makes the story much more interesting and suspenseful, (at least I think so!)._

Chapter Six:

            Several hours later, (although neither Cory or Shawn kept track, things like time had no meaning any more.), Cory's mother entered the small office. In her motherly arms, she grabbed her son and his best friend, who she had practically raised. She held them both, sobbing with them and rocking them like babies.

             A nurse came in to check on them, and she informed Mrs. Mathews of the situation, and also of the organ donation.

            "May we see her?" asked Amy Mathews, who felt as if her own daughter had died.

            The nurse nodded, and led them into the room. Shawn stood in the doorway, obviously torn between terror and grief. Cory and his mother knelt at the bedside and wept together, united in grief.

            "Cory, I agree with the doctor," she said. "This death must not be for nothing. Topanga didn't have the chance to make all the beauty she wanted in her life. That chance was snatched away by some foolish drunk driver, who may have survived the crash but who will never forgive himself. But Cory, you can give her that chance in life. Cory nodded at his mother, and spoke in a voice which sounded as if it had aged twenty years in the past hours.

            "I'll do it."

            A doctor came in, and began to speak to them.

            "We'll do it tomorrow," he said. "That will give enough time for her family to say good bye. Her mother and father should be arriving first thing in the morning. We'll do it in the afternoon. You can stay here tonight, if you'd like."

            Suddenly, Cory remembered something which he had forgotten in his grief. "The baby!" he said. "She's pregnant!"

            "Mr. Mathews, the baby did not survive the trauma of the accident. Even if it had, we wouldn't have been able to keep it alive until the due date. There's just no way. I'm sorry."

            The doctor left the room, and a new nurse came in with a pill for each of them.

            "To sleep," she said.

            They all took it, knowing that without it they'd never rest. And if there was anything they needed for the coming days, it was rest. They curled up in chairs around her bed and slept the artificial sleep of a sleeping pill.


	7. Chapter Seven

Chapter Seven:

            Cory awoke that morning to sunlight pouring in the hospital window. For a moment, he wondered why he had slept in his kitchen. Then he opened his eyes and remembered where he was. He got up from the hard chair and moved to his wife's side.

            "Good morning, darling," he said as he kissed her warm lips. It was hard to believe she was dead, not just sleeping.

            The door opened, and Topanga's parents came in and knelt at her bedside. More tears came.

            The morning past quickly, as they sat around her bedside and wept, united by their grief and love for the beautiful young woman. To soon, it was noon. A doctor came into the room and began to transfer Topanga to the gurney to take her to the operating room. Cory pushed the doctor out of his way and lifted his wife on to the stretcher.

            "I love you darling," he said, kissing her one last time and wiping his own tears from her cheek.

            As the doctor wheeled her down to the operating room, Cory ran out of the room and chased him.

            "I'm sorry Topanga, "he yelled, over and over until the door to the operating room shut in his face. He fell to the ground in the hallway, unable to shake the pain he felt. He sat there, thinking about how she was the lucky one. How could she die? How could she leave him?

            His mother came and led him back to the now empty room.

            "We'll make all the arrangement," she promised. "You just go home, the nurse will give you some medicine. Don't worry about a thing."

            "Wait," he said, running down the hallway and out to his car. He came back with the gift box from the jeweler. "Make sure she's wearing this."

            His mother held him in her arms and rocked him again. He felt as if he'd aged twenty years and gone back twenty years all at one time. The nurse gave him a shot, and his mother drove him home as he slept in the back seat.


	8. Chapter Eight

_A/N: Just wanted to tell you all that this story is almost done. I have just one more chapter after this one. Thanks so much for the reviews!_

Chapter Eight:

            Cory slept all through that day. His mother checked on him every so often, as she made calls to funeral homes, cemeteries, and relatives.

            "It's too soon for all this. She was so young," thought Mrs. Mathews as she dozed off on the couch in the living room Topanga had decorated all by herself.

            The next morning, Cory woke up and reached over to hug his wife good morning. He began to weep as his mind remembered the events of the last few days. He looked up and was greeted by a room full of flowers, complete with condolences from various friends and relatives. Cory felt as if the weight of his loss was crushing him. How could he ever go on with his life?

            Cory' mother walked into the room carrying several more vases of flowers.

            This one is from Mr. Feeney," she remarked, "and this one is from Jack Hunter."

            She sat down in the chair by his bed.

            "The hospital called this morning," she said. "Her heart went to a 16 year old girl with a congenital heart defect. Her lungs went to someone fighting lung cancer from secondhand smoke. Her kidneys went to a 25 year old man who has been on dialysis for 6 years. Her liver went to a former alcoholic who turned his life around for his children."

            Cory nodded, but at the same time he knew he would give all those people's lives for his wife back. Let someone else's dead wife save them.

            "The memorial service will be at 2:00 tomorrow afternoon. Everyone will be there, everyone from Philadelphia, everyone from here, everyone. It's going to be a beautiful service. Your father and I picked a cemetery plot with space for you next to her. The only thing left to do is for you to pick out…a dress. We picked a casket, but we thought picking a dress should be up to you. I'll go get you some breakfast, and leave you to find something. I'm sure you want to be alone around now."

            She exited quietly, shutting the door behind her. Cory pulled himself out of bed and walked into the walk-in closet. Instantly, he was surrounded by the memories that came from every piece of his wife's ample wardrobe. He stroked the wedding dress, and kissed the soft silk dress she'd worn to his last birthday party. He went through, piece-by-piece, marveling at how much they all smelled just like her, until he finally settled on the pretty dress she'd worn on their last anniversary. He grabbed the shoes she'd matched with it and brought them down stairs to his mother.

            She served him toast and eggs, and then he went upstairs and tried, unsuccessfully, to watch television.


	9. Chapter Nine

Chapter Nine:

            The morning of Topanga's funeral was bright and cheery. Cory hobbled down stairs and forced himself to eat, then began to get ready to greet friends and family. He pulled on his nice suit, and sat down to wait for the time to pass until it was time to leave.

            Finally, the old grandfather clock struck one O'clock and Cory and Mrs. Mathews set off for the beautiful church where the service would be held.

            When they arrived, Cory shook hands with people and reminisced about Topanga, but at the same time he felt numb and distant. Finally, he took his seat in the front row and sat down to hear people talk about his wife.

            The funeral was opened with Angela singing a song she and Topanga had listened to all the time in college. Angela did a brilliant job with the song, even through her tears. The music finished, and she took her seat, weeping.

            The minister walked to the front and thanked everyone for coming. Then, he invited people to come share about what Topanga meant to them.

            "When I first met Topanga, it was in our 6th grade class," said an obviously distraught Shawn Hunter, "We teased her mercilessly because she was going through some kind of weird phase. As the years went on, I watched her mature into a beautiful women with a gift for touching people's lives. I don't really know if I believe in God or not, but if there is a God, he took Topanga away too soon. But I can understand why. She was an angel who slipped through his fingers and somehow ended up living on Earth. We're all going to miss her."

            He too his seat, and an old man with a cane hobbled to the front.

            "I was Topanga's teacher for years," began Mr. Feeny, "She was on of the brightest young ladies I ever taught. She had charisma and passion and grace. Losing Topanga Mathews was a loss for the world."

            "Topanga was my son's girlfriend for years. Even before she married him she was like a daughter to me. She was never too busy to sit down and have a chat with me over a cup of tea. But that's just the kind of person she was. She was never too busy for anyone."

            "Topanga has been my best friend since high school. She helped me through hard times in my relationship with Shawn. We pulled many an all nighter together studying for finals. She was an inspiration."

            Finally, Cory got out of his seat and walked to the front.

            "I loved Topanga more than words can express. Our relationship went through many twists and turns. I'd like to say I was always the perfect boyfriend, but I wasn't. I can't even tell you how horrible I fell for all the time I wasted in stupid petty fights over nothing. I can't express how sorry I am for every time I hurt her feelings. There are no words to say how much I'd like to go home and have her sitting at the table with a cup of coffee wondering where I've been. I would give anything to wake up tomorrow morning and feel her warm presence next to me. Frankly, I don't know how I can live without her. More frankly, I don't know if I even want to. All I can think about is what I could've done to stop her from going to work that day. If only I had, this would never have happened. Everyone says it's not my fault. But on some levels, it is. I should have stopped her. I should have protected her. I'm sorry…" Cory trailed off into sobbing and murmuring that no one could understand. Shawn came up and led Cory back to his seat as all those in attendance wept.

            The rest of the funeral passed by in a flash for Cory. Finally, the graveside service was ending and they were preparing to lower her casket into the ground. He kissed the casket and took a single red rose from the flower arrangement on top of it. He wept as they lowered it into the ground. People began returning to their cars, but Cory just wept, wondering if he would be able to go on. He wished, for just one second, that it had been him in the car accident instead of her. He rocked back and forth and continued to weep.

            "Why her God? Why my wife?" he thought as his family helped him up and to the car.

Well, there's my story. I hoped you all liked it. If I get enough good reviews, I'm even considering writing a sequel!  I don't know, its up to you. Please, tell me what you thought of the story and whether or not you'd like a sequel.


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